The Contribution of the Catholic Magazine Espacio Laical and the Constitution to the Cuban Public Sphere

Abstract

In contemporary political, cultural and communicational debates, the idea of the public sphere has a notable presence. According to the classical Habermasian perspective, the public sphere is the realm of social life in which public opinion can be shaped by principles such as free access for all citizens, inclusion, reciprocity, reflection, equality and the rational justification of arguments. In this domain, people act as public when they discuss topics of general interest in conditions of equality and without coercion. These conditions guarantee, in normative terms, that the citizens can meet freely to express their opinions and points of view (Habermas, 1989). Nancy Fraser defends the influence of public discussions on decision-making and believes that the formation of public opinion can be a counterweight to discourses in formal deliberative arenas. He adds that sometimes the arguments put forward by civil society actors succeed in influencing the decisions of executive and legislative powers (Fraser, 1993). Reinforcing that idea, Avritzer and Costa (2004) argue that issues, positions and arguments defended by the new social actors must infiltrate the State through institutional mechanisms, and thus democratize and put it under the control of citizens. However, not all real public spheres are democratic, since cultural and material inequalities determine the differentiation between publics and their capacities, especially in spaces characterized by dependency relations and state interference (Chaguaceda, 2011). It has been pointed out that a merely conversational public sphere will not succeed in subverting power relations or guaranteeing the pursuit of the common good. The Habermasian model has also been criticized because it is confined to the analysis of the bourgeois public sphere and ignores that, together with the formation of the dominant bourgeois public, they suggested that the publics were composed of peasants, workers, women and nationalists, who constituted competing public spheres (Fraser, 1993) and complement each other. Therefore, one should not speak of sphere (singular) but of public (plural) spheres that together form the public space.In later texts, Habermas admits the coexistence of various public spheres and the need to observe the dynamics of the communicative processes that occur outside the dominant spaces of discussion. Now the public sphere is defined as a complex network formed by a diversity of forums for public discussion - both in formal institutions and outside of these, articulated through communicative activity, when different publics come together in organized networks to debate topics of common interest, contrasting points of view and assuming or reaffirming positions (Marques, 2008). Whatever position one takes within that debate, the notion of the public sphere reveals its value not only for critical social theory and democratic practice, but also for understanding the limits of democracy within existing capitalism and for the construction of alternative democratic projects (Fraser, 1993), both to the present neoliberal order and to socialist experiences of Soviet court. However, the Habermasian theory did not propose a universal law applicable to any context: it is a normative model to which existing societies approach or not. As has been stated (Chaguaceda, 2011), the concept must be anchored in specific contexts and subjects, given that the analysis of the public sphere in concrete spaces shows its normative limits. Limits appear when one analyses some countries, such as Cuba, that are not governed by the principles of liberal democracy, such as Cuba.